Finding the Green within the Grey

Containers

We don’t think much of containers except when we can’t find their lids.

I bought 3 boxes that fit one inside another, beautiful and solid, for $7, for myself, on a fairly recent birthday. I slide different things into them for my students: rocks, slips of paper with words on them. There’s magic in opening a beautiful box with something placed inside it for you.

The woman I interview about creating a family drinking policy for teenagers tells me our conversations are safe containers for our kids. Another interviewee tells me we are to be calm, cool and collected when we talk to our kids. What do we do if we are not these three things? We wait until later to talk.

Um, I am not always a calm container. Then my closet holds my pieces as I sit on the floor, collecting myself into a calmer version of myself. My husband sometimes is a container for me, reminding me of all of the wonderful traits and successes that are cataloged into my being.

When I prepare to teach my students, I fill my containers – the beautiful boxes and the bags – full of teaching materials. I chose the poems and I write a poem or two myself. But mostly I remember that I am there for them, so I always bring my flexibility. I am a container for them.

And they are containers for me. Did you write this poem, Nancy? You wrote this poem Nancy? I like this poem!

I like myself when I am with my students. Even when they frustrate me with their completely perfect, developmentally appropriate behavior, I love myself when I am with them. Because we only have an hour together, and I can be a good container for an hour of time.

I have 3 boxes that are beautifully adorned that fit one inside another. I almost didn’t buy them for myself, but my mother urged me on. Go on, she said, buy them for yourself. She didn’t buy them for me; after all, I am in my 40s now. I like both of these facts: the encouragement and the not buying. She is a container for me. I am a container for her. We fit together. She isn’t always calm, cool and collected. I’m not always calm, cool and collected. So we call each other later. We always talk about the hard stuff. I learned how to talk about the hard stuff with her.

I practice being a container with my husband. He practices being one with me. So we can be containers for our kids. We yearn to teach them how to belong to themselves completely instead of seeking belonging from the world. Yet we also know the world is a container for them and for us. Ah, how to belong to ourselves, to make good boundaries while also belonging to the world at large?

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Nancy Schatz Alton

I used to ride the playground ponies — painted metal creature swings behind my childhood home — and dream of a book with my name on it: Nancy Schatz. Years later, I walked that same playground and young girl asked me my age. Maybe I was 19. Shocked, she asked if I was married. Nope, not yet, I laughed in reply.

Now I’m married and my body’s pretty close to being 50 years old. My first dream came true with one minor adjustment. The name on the cover of those books is “Nancy Schatz Alton.” I think it took writing these two holistic healthcare guides — The Healthy Back Book and The Healthy Knees Book — to believe I really am a writer. But I’ve been a writer before I could pencil the alphabet on the itchy lined paper in Kindergarten. It’s just who I am.

I wear many other definitions. I’m lucky enough to be a mom to a teenager and a tween. I’m a freelance writer, editor and writing teacher and coach, too. I’m a baker and a short-order cook, an off-key singer and car dancer. I’m a former long distance runner, an avid reader and a lover of color. I’m also a spy, because writers are spies, right?

This blog was born a few years ago when I finally got tired of denying myself the privilege of having a blog. I love sharing my words, and if these thoughts can help someone else, even better. As this blog has evolved, some of what I have written is part of a memoir manuscript entitled “But Still and Yet: Navigating the Learning Differences World with My Daughter.” That’s the tale of being and becoming a mother. No, it’s not the story of my first child’s birth and how I stepped into this new role, although there are many fine books about this very topic. This memoir is about learning to embrace the idea that life doesn’t always get to be easy for our offspring. If you aren’t a parent, the journey I take is the same journey all humans take during this lifetime. This memoir answers this question: how do we crack ourselves open to become our best possible selves?

Boom. Enjoy my blog. Say hello via a comment if you have can. And Welcome to Within The Words, Finding the Green within the Grey,.

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